Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Residents in Paulsgrove in my constituency have had one of their bus services—the 1C—withdrawn by First Bus, but following pressure from residents a partial service has been reinstated, which finishes at5 o'clock. Many people consider the needs of elderly residents, and the partial service means that elderly residents cannot go out at night, but I was told of the case of a young lad of 15 who used to go to a theatre group and get the bus back late at night, but now cannot go. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should consider the needs of young people for bus transport and try to make them less dependent on their parents' cars?

Douglas Alexander: The fares at off-peak times, to which the hon. Gentleman refers, are not regulated fares. Although I understand that there was real concern and public interest in the fares that were announced, it is important to emphasise that that those are not fares set by Government. The regulated fares, which are set by Government, in addition to the advance purchase discount fares, account for about 70 per cent. of the journeys made on Britain's railways. Beyond those regulated fares and advance purchase fares, there must be a degree of flexibility for train companies to set prices against other modes of available transport, but I would urge all train companies to act responsibly when considering the setting of unregulated fares.

Philip Davies: Further to the excellent point made by my right hon. Friendthe Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), one of the biggest barriers to people using public transportin my part of the world is overcrowding on the Airedale and Wharfedale lines into Leeds. When will the Government start putting right the chronic underfunding of transport in west Yorkshire? In everything done by the Government, west Yorkshire always gets a bad deal.

Tom Harris: The Government recognise the importance of local railway lines to the communities that they serve and seek to support their development, primarily through the implementationof the community rail development strategy. The Department has recently published a review of the progress that we have made in implementing it.

Meg Hillier: I am delighted to be the first to ask a question of the new Ministry of Justice, and to welcome my right hon. Friend to his new position.
	I am pleased that the Department recognises the need for prison visitor orders to be issued swiftly, but I am afraid that that recognition does not appear to equate with reality. A constituent of mine, Father Mark Minihane of St Monica's in Hoxton, had to make31 calls to Wormwood Scrubs before he could obtain a visiting order. He wrote to me:
	"It took one family a week to get a visit, another is permitted by her boss at work to phone many times during the day in order to get through".
	He reported that when people did get through, they often had to wait for 25 minutes.
	What further work can the Department do to ensure that prisons comply with the instructions, and are there any other methods that people can use to—

Simon Hughes: Against the background of there having been an increase over 10 years in the total prison population from 60,000 to about 80,000 and the fact that the number of women in prison has almost doubled in10 years to 4,300, have the Government accepted Lady Corston's specific recommendation for "a significant reduction" in the number of women in prison and for community punishment to be an alternative?

Philip Dunne: May I be the first Member on the Conservative Benches to congratulate the new ministerial team on their new responsibilities? I sincerely hopethat the usual channels will in future find more than20 minutes a month for us to question them.
	Thanks to this Government's incompetent introduction of new procedures for postal voting—without there being sufficient time and technologies that worked, and without testing those technologies—how many people throughout the country were unable to exercise their right to vote by post in the recent local elections, and will the Minister accept a dossier being compiled at my request by the two returning officers of district council authorities in my area on the irregularities that have occurred?

Shailesh Vara: I thank the Minister for that reply. The Council of Europe is now considering monitoring UK elections, just as it does elections in countries suchas Ukraine, Albania, Serbia and Russia. Does she therefore share my concern that, under this Administration, Britain's reputation as a country of free and fair elections is seriously tarnished?

Michael Ancram: May I say how strongly I endorse my right hon. Friend's comments, which reflect what has been said by my right hon.and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke)? Where a military campaign has run out of constructive purpose, and is being pursued only to satisfy the hubris of a departing Prime Minister and a soon-to-depart American President, would it not be consistent and right for Parliament to have the right to vote to discontinue that campaign, too?

William Hague: No, I do not remotely think that thatis a major difference between the motion and the amendment.  [Interruption.] Well, it is one textual difference, but there are several textual differences between them. It is not a distinction that makes any tangible difference to the matter on which the House is to decide. The idea that any of us, whether in the official Opposition, the Liberal Democrat party or the nationalist parties, are not concerned with the security and well-being of our forces is pretty fanciful, so that is not a very relevant point.

William Hague: I tend to agree that we need some kind of convention, as advocated by the House of Lords Constitution Committee, or changes in the Standing Orders of the House, rather than legislation which has the additional disadvantage that it could be subjectto judicial intervention in circumstances of armed conflict. I agree with the thrust of the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
	I was attempting to say several minutes ago that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said something similar to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, saying in January last year that
	"a case now exists for a further restriction of executive power and a detailed consideration of the role of Parliament in the declaration of peace and war."
	Some of us have gone much further than that in the past, and by some of us I mean that I have, and so has the Leader of the House.
	In April 2003 the right hon. Tony Benn and I, in what some regarded as a highly unusual alliance, made a joint presentation to the Public Administration Committee, calling for the whole of the royal prerogative now exercised by Ministers, including the power to conclude treaties, the right to reorganise Government Departments, and the administration of the honours system, as well as the power to enter armed conflict, to be brought under parliamentary scrutiny and control. I cannot claim that anything so sweeping is at present the policy of my party or any other party, but the recent splitting of the Home Office with nothing more than a parliamentary statement to accompany it is an illustration of how much vital public business is removed from parliamentary consideration by being conducted under the royal prerogative.
	I have always been in good company on that. One Labour politician wrote in 1994:
	"The royal prerogative has no place in a modern western democracy"
	and that it
	"has been used as a smoke-screen by Ministers to obfuscate the use of power for which they are insufficiently accountable."
	That politician was the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), now the Leader of the House of Commons, who is anxiously ensuring that he opens the debate for the Government so that he can have his right to move back to the Foreign Office, rather than the Home Office, when the reshuffle is conducted.
	The Public Administration Committee came to a clear conclusion in 2004. It conclusions are referred to in both motions. It called on the Government to bring forward specific proposals
	"for ensuring full Parliamentary scrutiny of the following Ministerial prerogative actions: decisions on armed conflict; the conclusion and ratification of treaties; the issue and revocation of passports."
	The Committee said that
	"the prerogative has allowed powers to move from monarch to Ministers without Parliament having a say in how they are exercised. This should no longer be acceptable to Parliament or the people. . . It is now time for this unfinished business to be completed."
	The Public Administration Committee considered the royal prerogative as a whole, but the House of Lords Constitution Committee looked into Parliament's role and responsibility on the issue of waging war. Its witnesses included military, academic and diplomatic experts. Its central conclusion was that
	"the exercise of the Royal Prerogative by the Government to deploy armed forces overseas is outdated and should not be allowed to continue as the basis for legitimate war-making in our 21st century democracy. Parliament's ability to challenge the executive must be protected and strengthened".
	There is a need to set out more precisely the extent of the Government's deployment powers and the role that Parliament can and should play in their exercise.

William Hague: Although my right hon. and learned Friend and I usually agree automatically on these issues, all I can say is that that must be something that can be borne in mind. It would introduce an additional complexity to matters if the approval of two Houses had to be secured, and one would always have to be sure—at least, most Members of this House would want to be sure—that the supremacy of the House of Commons was guaranteed. However, that is a further matter on which consultation should be held before final proposals are framed.
	The House of Lords Constitution Committee argued not for an Act of Parliament, which could subsequently be subject to judicial intervention, but for a parliamentary convention, which could presumably be reflected in the Standing Orders of both Houses, that determined the role that Parliament should play in the deployment of armed forces overseas. It recommended that the Government should seek parliamentary approval if they propose the deployment of British forces outside the United Kingdom into actual or potential armed conflict, and that they should indicate their objectives, the legal basis and the likely duration and size of the operation. It recommended that, if for reasons of emergency and security, prior discussion were impossible, the Government should provide retrospective information in seven days—or as soon as is feasible—and seek approval at that time.
	It is not difficult to understand why so many informed and authoritative commentators and Committees of both Houses have concluded that matters need to be changed. In the past 10 years, the UK's armed forces have been deployed in five major military operations overseas—in Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq—and in each case the procedure for parliamentary involvement has differed. The House had a fiercely contested debate and vote about the Iraq war. The Leader of the House subsequently acknowledged that that set an important precedent for the future. On Kosovo, about which there was widespread, cross-party agreement, the debate was held on the Adjournment of the House. We have had many Government statements on Afghanistan, but there has never been an opportunity for a parliamentary vote, despite the fact that it is now the most substantial overseas commitment of the British armed forces, and is likely to remain so for some time.
	I draw attention to the variety of procedures not to criticise the current Government but to show that those of us who believe that the accountability of Ministers to Parliament is important to our democracy cannot sit back and think that current procedures are adequate. The number of overseas deployments in recent years has highlighted the problem, as has the controversial nature of at least one, but it is also true that the procedure has similarly varied in previous decades. There was a substantive vote at a late stage on the commitment of troops in the Korean war and thefirst Gulf war. On the other hand, the debate onthe Falklands war took place on the Adjournment of the House. No substantive vote took place on the deployment of forces at Suez.
	The arguments for ending the extraordinary variety of procedures, which generally results in the adoption of the one that is least inconvenient to the Government of the day, are strong. There is the case for strengthening Parliament vis-à-vis the Executive across the board. Whether or not the Government in this country have the characteristics of an elective dictatorship, there is widespread concern that the power of Parliament to influence Government decisions has become weaker over the years and that the trend needs to be reversed.
	A second and related case is that of democratic legitimacy. In the words of Lord Holme of Cheltenham when he introduced the subject in the Lords on 1 May:
	"The question is: in a modern democracy, not a 15th century monarchy, on whose authority should the young men and women of our armed forces be sent overseas to fight for their country?"—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 1 May 2007;Vol. 691, c. 980.]
	A third and related argument is that of reassurance to the nation that, on such momentous matters, debate will, whenever possible, be thorough and informed, and that Ministers must always operate under the constraint of knowing that they will have to explain in the House—prospectively or retrospectively—the basis of their actions.
	The former Chief of the Defence Staff, Lord Bramall, put the fourth and crucial argument to the House of Lords Select Committee. He said that the armed forces need to know that the elected representatives of the nation are behind them. As he put it,
	"the armed forces need to be reassured... that they have the support of the country... Parliament represents the will of the people and if Parliament supports the action... the armed forces can take heart that constitutionally the country supports it."
	Such arguments are compelling, but, of course, we are considering no simple matter. That is why we have given careful thought to the phrasing of our motion, which supports the principle that parliamentary approval should be required and calls on the Government to bring forward proposals to give effect to the principle, so that the practical difficulties that many Departments might raise can be taken fully into consideration. We have called for the principle to apply to "any substantial deployment" of British armed forces, bearing in mind that there is occasionally the need for deployment of special forces or others, in small numbers and in great secrecy, as part of rescue or intelligence missions or anti-terrorist activities.

William Hague: As I have said to other hon. Friends who have intervened, it is not possible to set out a precise number or quantification, even when we come to Standing Orders or however such matters are embodied. It has to be a matter for the common-sense judgment of the Government and Parliament at the time. Any of the five military deployments of the past 10 years that I referred to—Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq—would count as substantial deployments in the common-sense view of the Government and Parliament. It may not be as difficult to answer my hon. Friend's question on a case-by-case basis as he might think.
	We call in our motion for this principle to apply to
	"situations of war or international armed conflict",
	thereby excepting, of course, all domestic and routine military deployments. It is a matter for debate whether peacekeeping operations, which can also involve forces being drawn into danger and conflict, should similarly require parliamentary debate and approval.
	We have drawn attention to the work of the Public Administration Committee and the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution as the basis of parliamentary consensus because we believe thatthe latter Committee's recommendation to consider changes by parliamentary convention rather than by Act of Parliament may provide the best way forward.
	Finally, we have stressed in our motion that the Government's proposals to give effect to this principle should include
	"mechanisms to ensure that the capability to react rapidly in emergencies is maintained."
	No parliamentary procedure should stand in the way of the defence of the nation when it is under attack, when coming to the immediate aid of an ally or in meeting our treaty obligations. That is an extremely important point, because in NATO and the European Union we have obligations to take part in rapid reaction forces. Governments should not be constrained in taking action very quickly when necessary, provided that they are confident of being able to justify their actions in Parliament.

Jack Straw: I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	"welcomes the precedents set by the Government in 2002 and 2003 in seeking and obtaining the approval of the House for its decisions in respect of military action against Iraq; is of the view that it is inconceivable that any Government would in practice depart from this precedent; taking note of the reports of the Public Administration Select Committee, HC 422 of Session 2003-04, and of the Lords Committee on the Constitution, HL 236 of Session 2005-06, believes that the time has come for Parliament's role to be made more explicit in approving, or otherwise, decisions of the Government relating to the major, or substantial, deployment of British forces overseas into actual, or potential, armed conflict; recognises the imperative to take full account of the paramount need not to compromise the security of British forces nor the operational discretion of those in command, including in respect of emergencies and regrets that insufficient weight has been given to this in some quarters; and calls upon the Government, after consultation, to come forward with more detailed proposals for Parliament to consider."
	For Parliament and any Government, no issue is of greater gravity and consequence than war: whether to put our servicemen and women in harm's way, in the certain knowledge that some will be injured and some may be killed; and whether to entertain the other two certainties of war—innocent civilian casualties and considerable financial cost—along with the uncertainty of war, of unintended consequences.
	Precisely because of the seriousness of such decisions, Parliament, especially this House, has long played a role in holding the Prime Minister and Cabinet of the day fully to account for their decisions. Indeed, there has not been a significant armed conflict overseas since the beginning of the 20th century in which the United Kingdom has been involved where,in one way or another, at the time of decision or in retrospect, this House has not indicated whether, and in what way, it has consented to the Executive decision taken.
	The very qualifications in the language that I have just used, however, tell their own story about the question that lies at the heart of today's debate—that the power to make war, and to enter into armed conflict, is currently based on the exercise of the royal prerogative. That, in turn, has meant that Parliament's role, though substantial, is imprecise and less than well defined.
	The background of the more general scope of the royal prerogative is set out in two Select Committee reports—one of this House and one of the other place, mentioned in both the motion and our amendment. The first, from the Public Administration Committee, from the 2003-04 Session, is entitled, "Taming the Prerogative". The second, from the Lords' Constitution Committee, from the previous Session, is entitled, "Waging War: Parliament's Role and Responsibility". Each report is, in its own way, a model—well researched, well written and with conclusions that are well argued, even if they have not satisfied all. I say parenthetically that if anyone wants an example of the way in which the Select Committee system has greatly strengthened the role of Parliament in holding Ministers to account and in pushing further reform, those are two.
	The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) generously drew to the House's attention—I would have drawn attention to it had he failed to do so—to the fact that I have never been too enamoured of the royal prerogative as a source of Ministers' decision-making power. As the Public Administration Committee also generously pointed out in its report, I first wrote about the prerogative in some speeches and articles in the 1990s. Many of the major constitutional improvements that the Government have made in the past 10 years have had the effect, direct or indirect, of constraining or removing prerogative powers.
	The source of the prerogative is buried in the mists of time—drawn from the period when some claimed that monarchs ruled by divine right and never by the people's will—and predates the English civil war and the 1689 Bill of Rights, so prerogative powers are, as I have indicated, imprecise, as has been Parliament's role in adjudicating on them.
	As the Lords report points out, the usual platform for debate on whether to put our troops in harm's way is on a motion for the Adjournment. Let us reflect on how that must look to the public. The question before the House is not whether we go to war but whether we go home: whatever else changes, that must. I disclose no secrets if I tell the House that the Modernisation Committee is likely to recommend a replacement of "debates on the Adjournment" with debates on "subjects of importance", whether or not the debates are subject to a substantive or an open motion.

Jack Straw: The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks said that the matter we are discussing is not simple, and it is not. The question that the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) asks illustrates its complexity The exact circumstances in which this House should in advance have the right to give, or not give, its approval of military conflict decisions must be very carefully considered. Let us look back at the circumstances of the five major wars in which we have been involved and which I just mentioned. Were this new procedure in place, in each case there should have been a debate on a substantive motion, usually in advance—although perhaps, for special reasons, in the case of the Gulf war in retrospect, and an issue might also have been raised in respect of Afghanistan in 2001 to do with our treaty obligations. However, because this is not a simple matter we shall enter into a process of active consideration and consultation to ensure that we get it right and that we do so in a flexible way.
	At the time of the Falklands war, the then Government followed precedent, as others before and since have done. Before 2003—the Lords report draws attention to this—there had been only one occasion when the House had voted in advance on a substantive motion: in July 1950 on the Korean war. The motion was agreed without a vote—after, I say to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, the then Leader ofthe House had persuaded the then Leader of the Opposition to withdraw his motion. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman takes note of that.

Jack Straw: I know that the hon. Gentleman has military experience and I say to him that this is a difficult issue. The motion sets out, as I have, the important caveats to taking a decision in advance of a deployment. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has read the Constitution Committee's report, but if he refreshes his memory on it he will see the interesting discussion of various conflicts in which we have been involved in which, in the main, we have had the opportunity to consider the matter in advance. Sometimes that has not been the case, but it is significant that it has been the case quite frequently. If we go back through the last 100 years, we see that there has been a build up to every military action that I can think of, and it has been the British Government's decision—to which Parliament consented in one way or another—that has led to the war. I include the second world war, which, yes, turned out to be an existential war involving this country, but the declaration of war was made by us against Hitler, not by Hitler against us.

Jack Straw: For very good reasons, neither I nor my noble Friend the Attorney-General favours having the advice offered to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet by Attorneys-General and Law Officers disclosed publicly, whether to this place or in any other way. In evidence to the Lords, my noble Friend drew a distinction between disclosing the advice and disclosing what amount to his conclusions in respect of that advice—whether, in other words, the conflict was lawful.
	That was the practice that the Attorney-General adopted in respect of the Iraq war. He answered a parliamentary question in the other place, which I repeated here, and published a briefing document setting out why he believed—and it was his decision, not the Cabinet's—that the war was lawful. Of course Parliament should be informed about matters such as that, but the arguments against making the legal advice available, as opposed to the conclusions stemming from it, are overwhelming. I hope that the question is not pushed further.
	There are two models for making Parliament's role more explicit: one is by statute, the other by resolution of this House, including Standing Orders and convention. When the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks gave evidence to the Public Affairs Committee—and in his speech he slightly slid over this as, unlike some of us, I think he has changed his mind—he said that a more explicit role for Parliament could be laid down in an Act of Parliament or in the Standing Orders of the House. However, the report states that he went on to call
	"for a measure that was 'simple and flexible' to ensure that the House was able to discuss whether it should give its approvalfor military action. He was, however, concerned, that a comprehensive War Powers Act on the American model would find itself 'overtaken by events' because 'an international situation will arise in the next 20 years that is entirely different from anything we have ever experienced—and we would find such an act did not cater for it".
	As we proceed with the consultation, we will look at the various ways to achieve the objective that I believe the whole House shares. As it happens, the Constitution Committee came down firmly against the statutory route, and raised a number of objections to it. The Committee said that a statutory requirement could create confusion about the legal status of our armed forces, and added that any challenges to the legality of a deployment could have a negative impact on the morale of the forces involved. Furthermore, it said that the possibility that troops could face prosecution was wholly unacceptable.
	Aside from creating legal problems and potentially drawing the courts into the decision-making process, a legislative framework would have to ensure explicitly that it did not have a negative impact on an ability to react to emergencies. Examples of such emergencies might be the hostage rescue mission in Sierra Leone or, more recently, the UK evacuation of civilians from the Lebanon, where secrecy and speed, respectively, were essential.
	The deployment of our forces in the modern world will almost always be part of a coalition. Timetables are not necessarily under our control, and flexibility is needed. Our military involvement could be less timely, and therefore less effective, if an inflexible statutory process and legal challenges to a deployment further delayed commitment. However, I make it clear that we will look at and consider both sets of suggestions that have been put before the House.
	The alternatives to statute could be a resolution of both Houses, Standing Orders or conventions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) noted, that inevitably raises the question of differences between the two Houses and their respective roles. Of course, both Houses have an absolute right to discuss decisions relating to military action, and to be consulted and kept informed by Government. However, in the final analysis, the primacy of the Commons must be upheld—and I believe that that must apply even after the other place has been reformed. I rely on the words of the noble Lord Norton of Louth—

Jack Straw: I accept that. Some of us were in the Chamber on 3 April 1982 for a short debate on a motion for the Adjournment, which had a disastrous effect on one member of the Cabinet and framed the rest of the conduct of that war. I am not dismissing debates on the Adjournment, but we need to think about what is appropriate for today rather than for60 years ago.

Michael Moore: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can get away with that. The Leader of the House, in his usual way, was making an elegant attempt to square the Government's very difficult position that the shadow Foreign Secretary exposed, given what the Lord Chancellor and others had said.
	I was trying to be churlish—I was almost denied the opportunity. When the Government say that
	"it is inconceivable that any Government would in practice depart from"
	the Iraq precedent, we need to pause for a moment. It was, of course, an important breakthrough that there were votes on different motions. On 18 March 2003, the Liberal Democrats were united in voting against the invasion of Iraq. However, the manner in which the Government sought and obtained the House's approval did not create good precedents. Few will forget the dossiers of dubious distinction, the discredited manner in which the legal advice was obtained and then disclosed, or the flouting of international law. While the votes were of paramount importance, in every other respect the build-up to the Iraq conflict did not create any welcome kind of precedent at all.
	As has been said in debates in the House in recent months, we still need a full inquiry into what happened before the disastrous intervention in Iraq. There is an ever more urgent need for consideration in terms of the withdrawal of our armed forces. We will return to those issues on other occasions—or at least we hope that we will, although opportunities to debate, in Government time, what has happened in Iraq since the conflict began have been almost non-existent. If Parliament's role is to become more explicit, it cannot be involved only at the outset of military action; it must have an appropriate role in considering what follows. We welcome the Government's intention to consult and to bring more detailed proposals before Parliament, but we must hope that Ministers intend all those issues to be taken into account.
	Whatever lies behind the changed or changing positions of Members on both sides of the House,we appear to be reaching a defining moment in Parliament, in which we assert our position and take on more responsibility for some of the most difficult decisions that a country ever faces, and not before time. In this fiercely uncertain world, the United Kingdom retains a key role in seeking to establish peace and in maintaining order. As previous contributors have mentioned, Britain has more than demonstrated that in the past decade in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, never mind in countless smaller-scale expeditions. Time and again, our armed forces have demonstrated their bravery, commitment and professionalism.
	In Parliament, there have been Adjournment debates, statements and questions aplenty, but, with the exception of Iraq, there have been no votes. That surely has to change. Let us be clear about one thing: the principle of parliamentary approval for the deployment of our armed forces into conflict will not make things easy. Every one of us in the Chamber will be faced with a major responsibility that will never be comfortable. However, given what we ask of our young men and women on the front line, the least that they should expect of us is that we give serious consideration to the matters of life and death that they face. That is also what people across the country now expect. A million people took to the streets in anger and frustration to express their opinions on Iraq. The 21st century media allow people to absorb news from countless sources and to take part in debates online or in the studios, and they find it hard to believe that although the issues and the nature of the debates have moved on, our procedures in Parliament have not.
	As the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, said when she introduced her Bill 18 months ago:
	"the distance between public opinion and the power of the Executive is too great in our constitutional system".—[ Official Report, 21 October 2005; Vol. 437, c. 1087.]
	When the Government bring forward proposals, as they have pledged to do in their amendment, they must seek to bridge that gap and to create a new balance that gives Parliament a legitimate role, while recognising the legitimate needs of Government to make appropriate, timely decisions about the deployment of our armed forces. The motion recognises that and mentions
	"mechanisms to ensure that the capability to react rapidly in emergencies is maintained."
	The Government's amendment is right to stress
	"the paramount need not to compromise the security of British forces nor the operational discretion of those in command, including in respect of emergencies".

Michael Moore: The right hon. and learned Gentleman makes an important point. I am happy to agree with it, and I am sure that it will find support among Members from across the House.
	In seeking to strike a new balance between the Executive and Parliament, most of our initial attention must be focused on our deficiencies in respect of parliamentary oversight and Executive accountability. The rag-bag of statutes, powers and conventions that make up what passes for a British constitution gives plenty of scope for unaccountable Executive authority. The very notion of the royal prerogatives, dating from the mists of time, creates an air of mystery, but beneath the colourful, confusing veneer, many of those prerogatives have morphed into modern-day instruments of raw Executive power. Many outside this place find it staggering that the Prime Minister alone can take the decision to enter into armed conflict. The Cabinet's role is not formalised, never mind Parliament's. Although politically it would be hard to ignore a vote in the Chamber that had gone against the Government, there is no explicit constitutional bar on the Prime Minister of the day doing just that. That must change, too.
	The way in which government is conducted must also change. As I said before, we have not yet had a full inquiry into the disastrous decision-making processes that led to our participation in the Iraq conflict, but through the Hutton and Butler reports and the work of right hon. and hon. Members on the Committees of the House, we have had a glimpse of the informal and ill-judged way in which the Prime Minister took us to war. Certainly, we have learned more than enough for Parliament to demand more.
	We start from a position that may be slightly different from that of earlier speakers. On matters of such significance, we should have legislation, rather than simply tweaking Standing Orders. That is why we supported the private Member's Bill in the past. All of us must be prepared to discuss these matters when the Government's proposals are submitted for consultation. In the private Member's Bill that was debated 18 months ago, there were sensible proposals that provided a proper starting point for that debate. I hope that the Leader of the House will examine those proposals closely as he considers what to bring forward.
	The House will not have moved the game on unless any vote that we are asked to take is based on the kind of report envisaged by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood and many others, which sets out the reasons for the proposed action and the legal authority for it—more like the 13-page opinion from the Attorney-General on 13 March 2003 than the one-pager produced on the day of the debate a few days later. We will also need proper and appropriate detail on the geographical extent, the expected duration and the relevant elements of the armed forces that will be involved. Appropriate detail is an important element. Operational security and the safety of our armed forces must not be jeopardised, so the Prime Minister must have sufficient discretion to determine the amount of detail put in the public domain. Even with this important qualification, the provisions of the Bill would allow a significant advance in the level of parliamentary scrutiny.
	We must look at how that scrutiny is maintained appropriately once the conflict has begun, and later when it has finished. If we are to consider new ways in which the Executive explains its reasons for and seeks support for military action, surely we must also find new ways of scrutinising events afterwards. Positions on this have changed and hardened in the light of the Iraq experience, with the Conservatives now also committed to an inquiry, at an appropriate time, into what happened.
	A great deal of political energy has been expended on the demands for and rejections of inquiries. Without constraining the Committees of the House in the work that they undertake, we ought to have a clearer system of review which, at the right moment, allows proper investigation of the background to conflicts and our involvement in them. Governments can no longer expect Members of the House or members of the public to accept anything at face value. After Iraq, who will?
	During the Second Reading debate on private Member's Bill, a range of voices were raised in opposition to it. Legitimate issues were highlighted but, sadly, the clear objective for many on the day was to see the Bill killed off. That it was not even allowed to progress into Committee when ample opportunity was given makes that clear beyond doubt.
	Whatever the reasons, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches welcome the fact that the political winds have changed direction. We must quickly return to all the detailed issues at the heart of this debate. Our priority must now be for Parliament to be put at the centre of decision-making and scrutiny, where it belongs.

Nick Palmer: Does my right hon. Friend agreethat, in practice, if Parliament really had substantial disagreements with the Prime Minister of the day on an issue of war and peace, he would not be able to pursue it because he would be immediately brought down by a vote of confidence?

Malcolm Rifkind: My right hon. and learned Friend is correct in saying that other countries have found it possible to adopt a statutory approach, but may I suggest that that may not be a proper comparison? The United Kingdom is one of the very few countries that use their armed forces for a wide range of activities and operations in many parts ofthe world, including not just conflict but peace enforcement and peacekeeping. What would concern me enormously about a statutory approach is that the problem would be dealt with in a very rigid way that could seriously impede the ability of our armed forces to perform properly the task they had been given. As we have all agreed, circumstances will constantly change, and if it were necessary to refer constantly to some Act of Parliament rather than using the greater flexibility allowed by a convention, we might do a great disservice that we certainly do not intend.

Kenneth Clarke: I agree that that danger must be avoided in the drafting of a statute. A hugely complex, detailed and prescriptive statute would be a mistake. However, I do not think that it is beyond our abilities to produce a statute setting out firmly the framework of the process that should be followed, leaving adequate discretion to both Government and Parliament to use it as common sense and politics dictate in particular circumstances. That is, of course, something that can be considered during the consultation that the Leader of the House has proposed.
	Why do I say that it is not good enough merely to adopt the precedent of the vote that we had? I am grateful for the fact that we had a vote—it was a triumph that we managed to secure one—but why did that vote not constitute an adequate basis on which to proceed? The first and most obvious point is that it was not a timely vote.
	I will not repeat what the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton has just said, but there was resistance to a vote when it became increasingly obvious that an invasion was being planned. I share the right hon. Gentleman's suspicion that the Prime Minister used the royal prerogative to commit the country to taking part in an invasion early in 2002, long before that information was shared with many people in the country. We did not arrive at the vote that counted until the very eve of war, and when we did vote it was obvious to anyone who had followed the debate that the invasion would take place within a matter of days. Half the British Army was already in place in the desert, and no doubt the Americans were telephoning the Prime Minister to tell him that he must speed up the process because everyone was going to go.
	I know that in recent days the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton has been embarrassed by the fact—quite amazing to those who know him—that he has a record of having voted in favour of the invasion, but he is not alone on either side of the House. I well remember from discussions that took place at the time of the debate that many Members on my side of the House—not just the 20 or so who voted against the war at various times—felt that they could not possibly vote against it when the troops were already in the field, and could not understand how on earth Parliament could now be expected to pull them all out and bring them home. It was not a vote in which Parliament was being invited to take part in a timely fashion, and it was not a vote which most Members of Parliament could really believe would have the slightest credible effect on the outcome.
	We had had various statements. We had known what was going on. We had had one or two votes. We had had the vote in November 2002 on resolution 1441. I voted in favour of the motion tabled that day; it was skilfully worded. A very high proportion of those who voted in favour of that motion believed that they were voting for the last chance of avoiding war, not in favour of participation and an invasion. Many of us became indignant when it was later claimed that the November vote gave parliamentary authority for what happened. Many people in this country and abroad thought that a second United Nations resolution would be required before it could be turned into a basis for war.
	We had a lot of statements, followed only by questions, but no substantive motion. Whenever problems arose we had inquiries, but the inquiries were deliberately set up with very narrow terms of reference. The Hutton report inquired into the death of Dr. Kelly. The Butler report inquired into the use of intelligence; it was very critical, but not sufficiently so to shake the Government. In my opinion, those inquiries were set up to minimise parliamentary debate on those issues and to shift it outside, not to give Parliament a further opportunity to take part in the process.
	We had no vote at any relevant time when the debate and vote might have influenced the outcome, so we now have to draft a process. The starting point must be when a significant deployment of troops takes place; that is the time when the law, or strong convention, should require that parliamentary approval for a Government decision be given before it can be acted on. We need a process that lays down rules to establish that.
	Wider issues could also arise. The time has come when—as the Modernisation Committee seems to be contemplating—Parliament should have more control that it currently has over its own timetable and agenda, and the subject matter for debate. I welcome what the Modernisation Committee appears to be contemplating if that gives the opportunity for Parliament itself to force motions and substantive debates on substantive questions about the progress of a war and the next steps that should be taken.
	I do not believe that once we have gone to war, that should always rule out parliamentary scrutiny on the grounds that any discussion would undermine the troops in the field and be bad for morale. Of course certain types of debates would be very damaging to morale and extremely unpatriotic, but I think that the House can be relied on to treat Members who engage in such debates very roughly indeed. However, on many occasions the troops must be amazed that so little parliamentary attention appears to be paid to what they are engaged in, and they would like to be reassured that somebody back home is debating what is going on, and what is the likely outcome. In a modern democracy it should be impossible to cut out parliamentary scrutiny, and the need for the Government to seek a reaffirmation of their authority. I believe that they did so on a considerable scale in the Crimean war; the case for that in the 21st century is much stronger. We should be allowed to have such scrutiny nowadays.

Kenneth Clarke: I wholly agree. In terms of both Iraq and Afghanistan, we are currently unclear about what the Government believe will happen. We have not had adequate parliamentary scrutiny. I supported the operation in Afghanistan, and I was against that in Iraq. There is no argument against Parliament's considering a serious substantive motion about the future conduct of operations in both places. It would not be remotely unpatriotic for this House to address that. The circumstances in both countries are plainly wholly different from those that we thought we would face when we first intervened.
	The second thing wrong with the process was the way in which, at every stage, the Government controlled all the information on which Parliament acted. Of course the Government have to be the principal source of information, but there are certain types of information that our conventions and statutes should require them to lay before the House as a matter of duty, not just of choice. The legal basis for the war should obviously be placed in a clear statement before the House. As it happens, I am not one of those who believe that the Attorney-General's full opinion should ever be made public and placed before the House, because that would get in the way of fearless advice. Moreover, if the whole thing had to be drafted for public consumption, that would alter every nuance of it. Rather, the conclusion should be set out as such, and as a declared statement of the legal basis on which the Government are proceeding. That was done duringthe Iraq war, but again, not willingly or in a straightforward fashion. It was pretty messy, and arguments continued about the whether the Attorney-General had wavered. It would have been much better to have had straightaway a requirement that the Attorney-General draft the legal basis for proceeding to war and place it before Parliament.

Kenneth Clarke: I apologise, but I must conclude.
	My main concern is of course to improve parliamentary control, and to deal with the problems that the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton addressed, such as the ever-growing power of the Executive and the ever-weakening role of Parliament in holding the Executive to account on the public's behalf. However, we must also ask questions about the legitimacy of warfare. We all want to debate what is a just war and what is not. What are those extreme situations where British interests are so threatened that the use of military power is justified? There are few pacifists in this House, and we all accept that such situations do occur. However, they have occurred 60 times—some to a minor extent—in the last 10 years. We need to be satisfied, and our troops, too, need to be satisfied, that they are embarked on a legitimate process that has been authorised by the Parliament of their country, which is upholding the best interests and the best values of their country.
	The point was brought home to me most clearly in one of those arguments that I have described with one of my neo-conservative friends—a leading architect of the war. I was debating with him United Nations resolutions and the legality in international law of what was being proposed. I knew very well that he did not take the United Nations or international law very seriously; on the whole, such matters were indulged in by neo-conservatives to assist their European friends in getting their own countries involved, as well. They were not high on the list of priorities so far as leading neo-cons were concerned. However, my neo-con friend was able to answer my question about the legitimacy of his argument: he said, "We have all the legitimacy, as an American Government, that we require. We have large majorities in favour in both Houses of Congress." He thought that far more important than UN resolutions, or some fiction—in his opinion—called international law. I reflected that I could not counter that by saying that such legitimacy would necessarily be required under the curious constitution of the United Kingdom.
	What we are advocating, and the change that we are embarked on, will not in my opinion weaken this country as a power able to exercise influence in foreign affairs or defence. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), a former Foreign Secretary, is concerned that we might put in place systems that hamper our ability to punch above our weight—to use the Foreign Office phrase of which he is very fond—and to have an influence for good in the world. I would not wish to see that, but nine times out of 10, the process that we are discussing would strengthen a British Government's power to handle a diplomatic incident and to insist that British influence prevail.
	There will be cases like Suez, when Ministers lied to Parliament quite substantially—which I have no basis for saying that Ministers in the present Government did in the case of Iraq. There will also be cases like Iraq, in which there was controversy, and eventually it was proved that the whole thing was wrong. But in other cases, if a British Government facing our enemies, or other problems, can say, "We can demonstrate that we have won the support of Parliament"—it would usually be on a cross-party basis—"by explaining the cause and the legal basis and by being frank about the deployment," that Govt will be more feared and respected. There will then be less doubt about their ability to take part in military action if our interests are not respected.
	I do not think that, in the 21st century, we would weaken a Government by doing that; I think that we would strengthen it. We would get rid of the absurdity whereby it remains the case that the Prime Minister of the day can take to himself the powers of an absolute monarchy. A future Prime Minister would have enhanced authority if there were a process by which he could get the authority of Parliament behind him in defending British interests overseas. The proposed constitutional change would improve, rather than weaken, our ability to conduct foreign policy, and it would be looked back on as a change that it is amazing was not made a century earlier. This system should not have been allowed to drag on until this stage. At last, we have a Government spokesman standing up and defending what future students of politics will regard as obvious common sense.

Malcolm Rifkind: On the face of it, the debate is about parliamentary approval for this country to go to war, but it is almost as much about the erosion of trust in Government and the Prime Minister that has led to the demand for change. I am perhaps the first to contribute to the debate who is profoundly unenthusiastic about the change. I will support it, for reasons I will come to in a moment, but I take no particular pleasure in doing so. I have in mind not only the continuing controversies over the Iraq war—and the feeling shared by many people that they were let down by the Government in the projection of the case for war to both Parliament and the country—but the Kosovo conflict.
	Whatever one's views about the Kosovo conflict, the truth is that we effectively declared war on another country that had not attacked us. We proceeded to bomb that country for six months, but at no time was a vote taken in this House of Commons to give approval to that decision. Three debates took place on the Adjournment, but on no occasion was there an opportunity for a vote on something that was manifestly a war, even though no war had been declared.
	The conflict in Kosovo, in combination with the Iraq situation, has led increasingly to a profound mistrust of our arrangements, and to a demand to formalise them. Why do I say that I am unenthusiastic about that change? The answer is that, when one looks at how the royal prerogative has developed over centuries, one sees that what we have now is very different from what existed originally. In the past, the royal prerogative meant that a monarch—or any Prime Minister or chief minister appointed by that monarch—could take decisions regardless of the views of Parliament. Even in those days, however, the need to vote supply meant that Parliament could influence indirectly the monarch's ability to go to war.
	In contrast, the circumstances of the 20th century and today are profoundly different. When hon. Members of all parties talk about the need for democratic accountability, they speak as though we did not have an elected Government. Yet the Government are as elected as this House is, and they are the Government only because the Prime Minister and his or her colleagues command a majority in this House. Therefore, there is not the fundamental lack of legitimacy that existed when the royal prerogative was developed and used at an earlier time in our history.
	Moreover, the question goes beyond the fact thata Government—any Government—are elected. The comparisons with the US made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) are not entirely appropriate, for the following reason. The US President does not depend for his continuation in office on the support of Congress. If the American legislation did not require a vote in Congress before the US could go to war, a President could take that decision on his own initiative. Short of impeachment—which is incredibly difficult, for all the reasons that we are familiar with—there would be no way in which Congress or the American public could either reverse the decision, or stop it.
	A President is elected for a full term of office. He does not need to have a majority in Congress—very often, as at present, he does not have such a majority. It would therefore be intolerable, of course, that an issue as fundamental as peace or war could be determined by the President without anyone being able to do anything about it, short of invoking the ultimate nuclear weapon of impeachment.
	In the case of the UK, we all know what the political reality is: a Government who decline to ask for an endorsement by the House of Commons in these matters will not survive unless they command, if not the enthusiasm of the House, then at least its acquiescence. The Government take great pride in the fact that they asked for the House's support when the war in Iraq was determined. That is, of course, historically correct, but I do not think that I will be contradicted when I say that many Labour Members voted for the Government only with enormous reluctance. They did so because they feared that the Government would fall if they failed to carry the day. Similarly, a Government who went to war without a vote would know that the consequence of acting against the wishes of the House and of their own party would be the same.
	In an ideal world, therefore, I would prefer that we were not going in the direction in which we are moving. Once constraints such as we are discussing today are introduced by statute—and also, to some degree, by convention—there is a danger that demands for repeated votes during the course of a war could create extraordinary uncertainty and incoherence for our armed forces in the field.
	As I say, I take no great pleasure from the direction in which we are moving, but I believe that the Kosovo conflict was hugely important. I make no comment about its merits, but no vote was held in respect of that conflict, and not because the Government believed that not holding a vote would somehow assist our armed forces. No vote was held because the Government were, I suspect, embarrassed by the lack of a mandate from the UN Security Council, and by the fact that we were attacking a country that had not attacked us. The Kosovo mission had broad support on both sides of the House, but the Government found it convenient—for political rather than military reasons—to avoid the House being requested to give its formal approval.
	That is now history, and it is important that we go forward. If we are to require in future that the House must give its explicit endorsement when military operations are contemplated or about to take place, it is very important that we are conscious of what the necessary safeguards should be.
	The Government and my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) have both suggested that there would be occasions when it would not be possible for the Government to ask the House for approval in advance of a military operation, and that therefore provision should be made for retrospective endorsement. It is true that there might be such occasions, but any such retrospective endorsement would have to be considered very carefully. In an intervention earlier, I made the point that it is hugely important that a failure to grant retrospective endorsement should not render illegitimate a war already begun, as that would place our armed forces in a very difficult and incoherent situation.

Malcolm Rifkind: I broadly agree. It is hugely important that we do not get so involved in our debates in this Chamber that we forget the potential implications for the people doing the actual fighting and risking their lives on the country's behalf.
	There is a second aspect to the question of retrospective approval. It is very important that, if that retrospective approval were to be refused, the Government have maximum flexibility in respect of how our troops would be withdrawn. It cannot be demanded that, because the House of Commons has declined to give its support, our troops must be brought home in days or week, regardless of wider implications. I repeat that we must trust the Government to handle such matters in a sensible and flexible fashion. We must not tie their hands too much.
	I shall make only two additional points, as I do not want to detain the House much longer. The first is that the motion asking the House to approve the Iraqwar was incredibly complex. I have it here: debated on 18 March 2003, the motion was 32 lines long—a massive attempt to justify what the Government had in mind. A danger arises when it turns out that some part of a justification such as that turns out to be invalid. I shall read out part of the motion, although I stress that I do so not for partisan reasons but to illustrate my point. The motion seeking approval for the Iraq war began by requesting that this House
	"recognises that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction...pose a threat to international peace and security"—[ Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 760.]
	That was accepted in good faith, but we now know that no weapons of mass destruction existed. If the basis on which the House is asked for approval turns out to be totally invalid, what does that do to the legitimacy of a conflict? What message does it send to the armed forces in the field?
	If a similar resolution is required in the future, I propose that, far from having 32 lines, it should have only one and a half. Of course, any Government arguing their case from the Dispatch Box will have to explain their views, and of course such matters will be debated on both sides of the House, but I believe that the motion itself—the formal, legal endorsement for going to war or entering into armed conflict—should be kept to the minimum possible length in order to avoid the risk to which I have referred.

Malcolm Rifkind: I agree, but my main concern is the impact on our forces in a theatre of war. It is hugely important that they have a clear understanding that, whatever subsequent political events may demonstrate, the legitimacy of their actions on our behalf is not open to question.
	Finally, there is sometimes a tendency to assume that there is a straightforward choice: we are either at war or not at war. However, anyone who has been involved in conflict—even indirectly, in my case, or directly, like some of my hon. and gallant Friends—knows that that is not the case; the spectrum of military activity is huge. I am not referring only to peacekeeping or peace enforcement. I offer an example of the difficulties that we shall have to address.
	While I was Defence Secretary and then Foreign Secretary, the UN resolutions on no-fly zones in Iraq were enforced. That did not involve conflict on a day-to-day basis—we were not attacking Iraq every day of the week or every week of the year—but Britain and the United States, the two countries militarily involved, had told the Iraqis that if they breached the UN resolutions and attacked our aircraft or were seen in the air in the no-fly zone we would take military action to stop them. On several occasions, the Iraqis breached the no-fly zone, so British and US jets took to the air and sometimes shot down Iraqi aircraft and attacked Iraqi radar installations. That was not a declaration of war in any interpretation, but it was armed conflict, which is the term used nowadays. There are rarely declarations of war; they have gone out of fashion as declarations, even if the substance is still with us.
	Armed conflict took place, but we cannot seriously suggest that between the Iraqis breaching the no-fly zone and the UK taking action to enforce it we should have had to come to the House to ask for approval. That would be an absurd situation. However, such operational problems can easily arise in the real world, so I say to my hon. Friends as well as to the Government that although, sadly, it is necessary to move towards a formalisation of the role of the House and of Parliament as regards the Government's use of what has formerly been the prerogative, it will be enormously difficult to handle unless we are prepared to sacrifice the flexibility that has until now been an asset. It is sad that erosion of trust in the Government has forced us to make such painful choices.

Neil Gerrard: Normally, when I attend debates and hear agreement between Ministers and Opposition Front Benchers I am immediately suspicious. Today, I shall make an exception, because an important development is taking place along lines for which I and some other Members have been arguing for some time. As I pointed out earlier, I introduced a private Member's Bill on the subject in January 2005. It had cross-party support and in the following year my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) took the matter up again after the 2005 general election.
	Over the past two or three years, there has been a change of opinion and in the degree of support for our views. In late 2004, I tabled an early-day motion that attracted 149 signatures; by 2005, a similar motion received 233 signatures. The shift is continuing. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) suggested that it had occurred among only Labour Members, but it has actually occurred on bothsides of the House. In 2004, seven Conservative Members signed my early-day motion; by 2005, 36 of the 233 signatures were Conservative. In the opening speeches and in the interventions made on the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, I still detected unease among some Conservative Back Benchers about not only the Government's proposals but those of their Front-Bench team.
	The general mood and general opinion have shifted. The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) said that only the converts are in the Chamber, but there has been a significant change and the general view on both sides of the House is that Parliament should be involved in what is probably the most important decision that we can make—sending troops to military conflict.
	The differences between the Opposition motion and the Government amendment seem to be of the order of angels dancing on pin heads. Whichever of them is accepted, we shall have reached agreement on an important point of principle—things need to change—although we shall still need discussion and consultation about the detail of how the changes are to happen and whether it is to be through legislation or convention.
	There has been much mention of Iraq, but the war in Iraq was not the stimulus for my private Member's Bill, or for the inquiry carried out by the Public Administration Committee, which looked much more broadly at the use of the royal prerogative. The question we are debating was just a part of that. There were three votes on Iraq and I never had any doubt that each of them was about legitimising a forthcoming war. I cannot understand how people in the House at the time could see any of those three votes as anything else.
	The first debate was in November 2002, some months before the war, and some Labour Members were not really sure whether they should vote. During the debate, I told them that it might be their only chance to vote before the war and that they should not assume that there would be another chance, although in fact there were subsequent votes. But a precedent was set. The Prime Minister said shortly afterwards that he thought that it was inconceivable now that any Government could try to go to war without a vote—but the fact that the Prime Minister said that is no guarantee for the future. We have to look at the mechanisms involved.

Neil Gerrard: I thank the hon. Gentleman forhis intervention. That is obviously one possible mechanism. In terms of scrutiny, there seems to be no problem with Select Committees choosing to look at what is happening. The real problem is that debate is not taking place in the House as a whole. We have had relatively little debate in the past two or three years about what is going on within Iraq, when it is clearly of immense importance and when there are many, many Members who are seriously concerned about what is happening. But that is a slightly different issue: it is to do with what happens afterwards, rather than what happens at the point when we are about to take military action.
	I was interested to read in the report from the House of Lords Constitution Committee some of its descriptions of what happens and what needs to happen. The Committee talked about wars "of necessity", "of choice" and "of obligation". A war of necessity is self-defence. If one is attacked, quite clearly one expects to defend oneself. As far as this country is concerned, it is difficult to think back to a time when that actually happened—when the trigger for war was a direct attack on this country. The Committee dismissed wars of obligation as not being a reality. It pointed out that none of the international treaties that we are signed up to forces us to take military action. Even perhaps the most obvious example, article 5 of the NATO treaty, which is the core commitment to collective self-defence in NATO, only commits each signatory to take
	"such action as it deems necessary"
	in the event of an attack on another. In the end, the sovereign country still decides whether to take military action.
	In every case, the military action that we are involved in, and have been involved in over quite a long period of time, has been the result of choice. It was a political choice to be involved in military action in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Iraq—the major military actions over the past 10 years. It cannot be suggested, as some tried when we discussed parliamentary involvement a year or two ago, that if Parliament had been involved, it would have given the game away and alerted the enemy that we would be involved in military action, because every example involved a significant build-up period. In most, although not all, of those cases, military conflict did not involve the UK going it alone because either we were in a coalition, or the action took place under the auspices of UN resolutions.
	I am glad that there is recognition that some of the objections that were raised in the past were rather spurious and that we have reached a position in which we will today agree the principle that we need to find a different mechanism. I understand the argument that a convention could be more flexible than legislation and that a workable convention might be easier to achieve. I remember from drafting my private Member's Bill that it is really difficult to get all the detail right and to think of all situations that might arise so that they can be covered. The key issue is that there should be substantive votes. We need a mechanism that will ensure that substantive votes take place in the House and that the House can have a degree of control over the timing of votes. Those are the two things that we should be looking for from the consultation that will take place as a result of this debate.

Edward Leigh: Supply days usually make very little difference, and I often wonder why we are always on a three-line Whip for such debates because the Opposition always get voted down by the Government and, apparently, very little ever changes. However, this will clearly be a historic occasion—the earth has moved. Governments have declared war, which is arguably the most important thing that they have to do, in a certain way for centuries, but, apparently, as a result of the motion moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), both sides of the House have had a Damascene conversion this week and decided that Parliament should be allowed to have a say on all future occasions. As several hon. Members have said, there is very little difference between the motion and the amendment. This is a historic occasion, and I hope that, for once, when the newspapers are printed tomorrow, they will note that.
	On that bipartisan note, we can all be very pleased, but why has this happened? I do not think that anyone can deny that there has been a massive breakdown in trust in the Government's word to Parliament. We must be very careful about what we say because we do not want to be ruled out of order, but everyone knows that that breakdown has happened.
	We have heard a lot of talk about how the historic prerogative of the Crown is rather old-fashioned and how no one believes in it any more, but there was overwhelming public support for what Governments were doing in all wars before the Iraq war, which was declared in March 2003. We only have to think back to the days before the declaration of war in 1914 to recall that there was overwhelming support among the public and in the House and massive demonstrations were held. There was a feeling that we were absolutely right to go to war because the independence and neutrality of Belgium had been violated. The mood in 1939 was much more sombre, but it was absolutely united. We felt that while we had given Germany every opportunity to try to maintain peace, owing to our desperate experience of the first world war and our desire to avoid war, we had to go to war. Although there was some opposition to the Falklands war, there was basically a united House of Commons and united public opinion on that much smaller war, which happened after the sovereignty of part of the United Kingdom was grossly violated by an invasion. While all those wars drew support, there was one important exception: Suez. That rather proves the point.
	We should not dismiss what happened in the past as being rather old-fashioned, but accept that before the events of March 2003 the system worked really quite well. Prime Ministers did not act alone irrespective of public opinion. The truth is that they acted in line with public opinion—they almost had no choice. During the events of May 1940, Winston Churchill said that if the Government had tried to resist public opinion, they would have been physically dragged from office.

Edward Leigh: Of course I agree with that. To turn briefly to the subject of Afghanistan, apparently everybody assumes that there is broad support for what is going on there, but looking at the history of Afghanistan and our previous involvement there, I have enormous doubts about what is happening in that country. I have doubts about whether we will ever resolve the situation, and whether we will ever defeat the Taliban, their successors, or the successors of their successors, because once again we are being sucked into a vortex of military operations in an Arab country. Of course my hon. Friend is right. Apparently, we are all in agreement on the problem: in future, we must have a resolution before we go to war. However, there are still enormous doubts about how to ensure that that happens.
	Where I part company from many people in the House—I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I have to say this—is that I believe that we need another vote on whether we should stay in Iraq. As I said to the Leader of the House, to the Prime Minister last week and to the Secretary of State for Defence yesterday, although the point was constantly brushed aside, the situation has changed fundamentally. We went into Iraq because we feared for the security of the region, and we believed that the country's Government was a threat to the region. We now justify our continued presence by saying that we are asked to be there by the democratically elected Government, and we say that we will stay there as long as is necessary. However, there has been very little debate in the House about what is actually going on Iraq, and what little debate has taken place has had to be forced on the Government.
	We all know that, in reality, the writ of Iraq's ostensibly democratic Government hardly extends beyond the green zone. We face the same situation that we faced in Vietnam and in many other wars: our Government and the American Government are desperately finding an excuse to get out. The excuse will be that we have somehow resolved the security situation, and that the democratically elected Government of Iraq is happy for us to scale down our forces, but we all know that that is simply not true. We all know that there is a complete and desperate mess out there. None of us has any time for what Saddam Hussein did, and we all know that he was a ruthless and desperate tyrant, but we have enormous sympathy for ordinary Iraqi people. When I visited Iraq while Saddam Hussein was in power, those people were going about their business. They were running their little stalls in the marketplace in some semblance of peace and security, but now they are living in a vortex of violence. Our troops are still there, and it appears that no Government Member has the courage to come before the House and say, "It's all over. The mission has failed; it simply has not worked, and we are going to get out."
	As I said yesterday to the Secretary of State for Defence—my point was brushed aside—we all know that the incoming Prime Minister will get us out of Iraq before the general election. It is inconceivable that British troops will still be in Iraq at the time of the next general election. Any Government that still had troops in Iraq at the time of a general election would be swept aside by our electorate. Such is the complete breakdown in trust, and such is the opposition of the British people to our continuing presence in Iraq, that whatever happens, and whatever the security situation on the ground, our troops will leave. For that reason, the process is subject to an arbitrary timetable of three, or more probably two, years.
	Is there any sensible debate? No. Is any real intelligence coming out of Iraq? We are told, of course, that we are doing terribly well in the southern part of the country, although the Americans are having all sorts of problems, and we are told that we are gradually withdrawing, but we have not actually been told what has been happening in the provinces from which we have withdrawn. We all know that gradually a strong military or political force will take over as we leave. Apparently, we will now withdraw to the airport, but does anyone think that a country can be run from an airport? The reason we are withdrawing to the airport is to try to reduce our casualties. It means that we can maintain the political fiction that we are still in the country and are sustaining the Government, and that everything is all right. We are stuck in the airport. Armies that retreat to airports are armies that are leaving the country.
	The only way we can run Iraq is by having many more British troops there. We would need not 5,000, but 10,000, 15,000 or 20,000 troops on the ground throughout the southern part of the country. Is there any real discussion of the subject? Is there a vote? There is nothing. We are deluding ourselves. When we leave, one of two things will happen: either there will be complete chaos and civil war, or some strong man will take charge. We are all apparently agreed that terrible mistakes were made in the aftermath of the invasion, that we should have left the Iraqi army in place, that we should have left Ba'athists in charge of the army, and that we should have got out within three months—and there were all the prison scandals, too. However, that is all said with hindsight. At the end of the day, a strong man will emerge, and it will not be the present bunch of corrupt politicians who are sheltering in the green zone, and who have just awarded themselves a two-month summer recess while American troops are dying in the streets trying to protect them. Incidentally, there is a lot of disquiet in America about that.
	Why do we not have the courage to hold another vote, or to start doing what the United States Congress is doing? Ours is now one of the weakest Parliamentsin the western world. The United States Congressis applying massive pressure to the American Administration. Negotiations continue daily, and votes are threatened that would cut off President Bush's supply; he is having to negotiate his way out of that impasse. Here, we are brushed aside with soft words. We are told, "The Prime Minister says that we are in Iraq at the behest of its Government", and we are told that we are making progress, but no details are given.
	There are no intelligence reports, just as there were no intelligence reports before the war, and I suspect that there is actually very little intelligence. Before the war, we all imagined that the Government were equipped with massive amounts of sophisticated intelligence, and that there were agents on the ground informing the Government what was happening. I do not believe that that sophisticated intelligence is out there at the moment. I think that the Government's intelligence on what is happening in the provinces that we have vacated is very weak indeed. The Government are flying by the seat of their pants, and they have no idea what will happen; they simply want to get out. Why do we not have the courage to have another vote in Parliament, or to do what other self-respecting legislators have had the courage to do and say, "It's all over"?
	Iraq is not worth the life of another British soldier. It does not matter whether we get out next month, in a year's time or in two years' time; Iraq will find its own way, and that is the right way. I cannot understand why we have a sort of intellectual imperialism as regards Arab people and the Muslim world, or why we think that we are entitled to impose our ideas of western liberal democracy. Of course, in this House, we all believe that those ideas are superior, but do we have no idea what is going through the mind of ordinary Iraqis, apart from those few politicians sheltering in the green zone? Do we really imagine that we are popular in Iraq? I know that there is a division of opinion on that, and that some people would perhaps like us to stay, but fundamentally, most people are opposed to what we want, and opposed to our way of life. They see violence around them, and they want us to get out. The days of us imposing our views on those people are over.
	This is a great debate, and we have made enormous progress. As a result of a massive breakdown in trust, there will be no more wars that commit us in the way Iraq did. However, the time has come for another vote—a vote calling for an immediate, ordered withdrawal of British troops, so that the Iraqi people, and the Iraqi Government, whatever shape or form they take—military, semi-democratic, Shi'a, Sunni or Kurd—can find their own way to peace and justice, according to their own lights. Let us have another vote, and let us get ourselves out of this mess.

Nick Palmer: In response to the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), I do not think that the debate has a great deal to do with Iraq specifically. Indeed, Iraq shows the limitations of what we are doing today. I also do not think that the debate has much to do with Afghanistan. I slightly question the hon. Gentleman's expertise, as he seems to think that Afghanistan is an Arab country. It is not.
	I shall explore in my speech the limitations of what we are doing today. To some extent, we have all been in agreement and we have made matters too easy for ourselves. I accept what everybody has said so far, that the issue is extremely important, and that we are making a very important change to the democratic tradition in Britain. It is a good change and it is overdue. I pay tribute to hon. Members on such as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) and others who are not present. I also draw attention to my near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), who tabled motion 27 on the Order Paper, which I guess he can now withdraw because it is essentially identical to what we are about to approve today.
	The background to this debate is the increasing public scepticism over the involvement of Britain in international affairs to anything like the extent to which we have been accustomed in recent years. The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), who spoke earlier, is a vigorous supporter of Britain punching above its weight. There was a recent opinion poll that specifically asked, "Are you in favour of Britain punching above its weight?" A substantial majority said, "No, we are not. We are against Britain getting too much involved." That is a serious issue for all of us.
	We can all think of conflicts on which we disagree. For some it might be Suez, for some it might be Iraq, for some it might be a number of conflicts. Similarly, unless we are pacifists, we can all think of occasions when we would like Britain to intervene or to have intervened in the past. Many people feel that we ought to be intervening in Darfur. There are some who feel that we should be intervening in Zimbabwe or in Burma. There is always a debate on these topics and there is always a case for intervention. It is sobering that we have come to a point where the public on the whole say, "I don't care if there is a good case for it. We don't want to get involved." In what we are doing today and in subsequent discussions, we need to try to rebuild the process to the point that the public accept that if that process is gone through in the correct way, we will reach a reasonable basis on which to intervene overseas.
	I agree with the public that we have tended too often to say, "We are the experts on what the world needs and we are prepared to intervene, whatever it takes and wherever it may be." It is necessary to be able to do that in the right cause to prevent genocide or wholesale slaughter, and we need a process that we can accept. I am in favour of the change and I should like to explore some of the specific details that have been raised during the debate. The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) asked what the test should be for substantial involvement, and whether it should be firepower or manpower. The answer is both. If we commit substantial firepower abroad, Britain will become very much part of whatever controversy is involved. That is a matter on which the House of Commons should legitimately be able to express an opinion. If we commit substantial manpower, the likelihood is that British lives will be lost—so even more so should Parliament be involved.
	The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow both raised the issue of timing. As we discussed in my exchange with my hon. Friend, there are difficulties both in consulting too early and in consulting too late. If the Prime Minister had come to the House six months before the Iraq war—at a time when I think that he had privately concluded that it was likely that war would be necessary—and if at that stage he had sought the authority of the House to go to war, with the United Nations still debating the issue and a great deal of controversy about Saddam's intentions and about the potential for the weapons inspectors to succeed in their mission, it would have been seen as an extremely provocative act, effectively pre-empting the attempt to find a peaceful outcome. However, by consulting only when the troops were on the border, as my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow and for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said, a great many of us felt that it was very difficult at that stage, with our troops on the border, for us to say, "No, let's all go home."
	I suggest that we foresee two separate decisions. One would be taken at the time of a substantial deployment of troops abroad. It would be accepted that that was not a vote to go to war, but a vote to deploy troops with a view to forcing a positive outcome. There would then be a separate decision at the time that it was felt that military force was needed. Those are two quite separate decisions, which should be seen as such. It should be possible to say, "We authorise the dispatch of 50,000 troops"—or whatever the number might be—"for the purpose of advancing a favourable outcome", without that being a commitment to armed conflict, which would necessarily and prematurely inflame the situation.
	I am opposed constantly to revisiting the issue once a conflict has started. That was the point that we discussed briefly earlier. If our troops are fighting, it seems to me that we should not have some routine mechanism for Parliament to revisit the issue at regular intervals to discuss whether they should be fighting or whether they should stop. That would be demoralising.

James Gray: The hon. Gentleman's suggestion is sensible. It might be possible for us to set up some such structure—some form of truly secret committee in this place—to consider the secret intelligence and then to certify the approach to the war. That is a possible approach, although also a difficult one, as it is not easy to imagine how we could construct that. However, we must avoid the spinning and the perversion of intelligence of 2003.
	The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) suggested that the public were at the time of the vote on Iraq very much in favour of the invasion. That is incorrect: 75 per cent of the people of this country were against an invasion of Iraq on the day on which we voted. That is in contrast to the situation in respect of Afghanistan; 70 per cent. of people were in favour of that deployment. The Government, faced by a difficult vote when they knew that the people were opposed, had to spin the intelligence in order to justify the deployment. In other words, an unpopular war requires greater spinning, particularly if there is to be a vote, but a popular war which is acceptable to the people, such as all the others, did not require that. Therefore, if we are to go down this route, there is an important question to be asked about the way that intelligence is used.
	We must also think about the way in which the armed services react to this place. I did not agree with the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd), who suggested that the armed services deployed in the field were significantly questioning the reasoning behind the Iraq war. That is not my experience from talking to the armed services. They say that they are ready to do their jobs and that people cleverer than them in this place have decided that we should carry out such operations. I have not come across generals or regular soldiers saying that they thought that the war was unpopular and that they wished they were not there. They are glad to be there, and to be doing a professional job. However, if every aspect of a deployment to a theatre of war were governed not by the Executive but by this place, and if there were detailed discussions in this place, that would encourage those deployed increasingly to question why they were in that theatre of war. There would be constant debates in this place about the rightness or wrongness of a particular war, which would encourage people to question it. I am concerned about the politicisation of warfare that might result.
	Let us imagine that a Government had a majority of one, and that the war in question was unpopular but necessary. It is not right to think that all wars are popular; quite a few are unpopular but necessary. That Government, with a majority of one, would have to get involved in all kinds of political activities to achieve a majority in this place. Individual Back Benchers would demand the saving of particular accident and emergency departments, for example, if the Government were to get their vote. The Whips would be hyperactive and all manner of activities would be going on to achieve approval for the war.
	The Opposition in question, behind by only one vote, would surely be strongly tempted to oppose the war because they would believe that they might just embarrass, or even defeat, the Government. If that Government said that they wanted a war, presumably the Opposition would see an opportunity to pick off one or two Government Back Benchers—thereby defeating the Government on the central question of going to war, for goodness' sake—as a highly attractive proposition. In other words, an issue that ought to be dealt with through statesmanship would have been party politicised. That is another extremely difficult problem. We would need to find a way under the proposed procedure of establishing that where reasonable consensus exists on the question of going to war there should be a vote, while recognising that if there is a lack of consensus it might be much more difficult to do that. Reversion to some form of Executive prerogative, rather than royal prerogative, might be necessary.
	We have touched briefly on emergencies and of course, if there is an incoming intercontinental ballistic missile, no one would suggest that there should be a vote in the House of Commons on whether we should shoot it down. That is fairly obvious, and the Executive would of course have the authority to shoot it down, but what about less dramatic but none the less important emergencies? There are a variety of situations, such as the no-fly zone in Iraq, on which an immediate decision by the Executive is important for the sake of the peace of the world. A decision by this place, especially if it involved intelligence committees and so forth, would take quite a long time to reach.
	The sinking of the Belgrano springs to mind as an illustration of whether it was right for a Prime Minister to take such a decision. The Prime Minister of the day decided to sink the Belgrano and many people think that that was the wrong decision—I believe that it was the right one—but if this place had been asked whether to sink it, the ship would have been at the north pole before we had even begun to discuss the issue. There are many situations that need an urgent decision, and it would not be right to leave them to this place. What would happen, moreover, when we took part in United Nations or NATO operations or—heaven forfend, from my standpoint—if we took part in an EU operation? Might there be circumstances in which the UN or NATO sought to deploy British troops, but this place decided not to? Whom would the generals obey—their NATO commander or this place? That is a difficult issue that needs to be considered carefully.
	So, although I am persuaded that the removal of parliamentary powers that we have witnessed in the past 10 years probably ought to lead us to seek to restore them by some reduction in royal prerogative, and although I am persuaded that the worry of committing our people to war is so huge that such a decision ought to be taken in this place, I none the less have very real reservations about the proposal and its operation in practice. I suspect that the risk is that, while we were satisfying ourselves on the democratic side, we would be undermining our capability as a force for good in the world. My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter) made a powerful point in that regard when he explained how Germany is hampered by its constitution.
	Contrary to what I thought this morning, although I am ready to support the Conservative party's motion and, indeed, Labour's amendment, as well—given that they seem to be more or less identical—I do so with significant reservations. The discussions that the Government have promised us in the months that lie ahead are vital. We must get this right if we are continue to be the force for good in the world that our nation has always prided itself on being.

Tobias Ellwood: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, which is the main thrust of my speech. If he waits a moment, I shall come to that.
	There was some shameful spinning of the facts in order to justify war. Many will say that we would have gone to war anyway, because it had been decided that there was justification. Either way, we did it in a manner that alienated many of our allies. Again, that is an experience that we should never repeat.
	Let us suppose that the vote has taken place and the decision to go to war has been made—I now come to the hon. Gentleman's point. The actual war with Iraq is only half the story. I was frustrated by some of the comments today that the vote on 18 March 2003 is the cause of the mayhem today. That is absolutely wrong. Our boys, the Americans and all the allies did their job in the fortnight after battle commenced and the country liberated. What followed was four years of a mess being created in a country that is now on the brink of civil war. If we are to make a decision to go to war, may we also have some form of scrutiny of the peacekeeping that follows?
	I repeat what I said in an earlier intervention—had we had a suitable plan after the war to lift Iraq off its knees , sorted out the Ba'ath army, dealt with the infrastructure, looked after the oil wells and got them working to provide income for the country, it is possible that we would not be having this debate today. I would even go so far as to say that the Prime Minister would not be forced out of office, as he is. It is not the fault of the military. My regiment, the Royal Green Jackets, now The Rifles, is currently based in Basra and working extremely hard. We should pay tribute to the hard work that all our forces are doing. However, if we ask them what frustrates them, they say that it is their belief that the blueprint for Iraq is questionable. They did their job at the beginning by liberating the country, and then we had a blank canvas to do something with. That has been a wasted opportunity. I recommend Bob Woodward's book, "State of Denial", which goes through the details of some of the decision making that took place on both sides of the Atlantic and perhaps brought us to the questionable position that we are in today.
	We must first to be able to scrutinise the decision to go to war, but then, even if we disagree with it, we must accept it, put it behind us, and look at what we are doing to manage the peace. We have alienated our friends and lost hearts and minds because of the manner in which we have gone about our business. Britain is very good at winning over hearts and minds; we have a fantastic reputation around the world for making friends in a peacekeeping role. I cannot say the same for the Americans, who have lots to learn about befriending a nation that they are going into and being seen as liberators, not occupiers. I would like further scrutiny of that issue. Four years after the invasion, we are still debating it endlessly and there are concerns about the direction in which we are going. Most importantly, we are now looking at an exit strategy. Members on both sides of the House have said that we should withdraw. I would be uncomfortable with that because it would deny people the help that we promised them, but we need to look back at the blueprint and ask what we can do to improve the situation. The policy is failing and Parliament needs more scrutiny over why that is so. I am less angry about the decision to go to war than about the failure to keep the peace.
	Part of this debate must concern our capacity to help. My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) has spoken time and again about the problems of overstretch that British forces face. We need to be careful about committing ourselves across the world, sometimes without the support of our NATO or Commonwealth allies, when we simply do not have the troops or the military support. If, as the Prime Minister suggested on 17 January on HMS Albion, we are to stand up and be counted when other nations are reticent in defending democracy, we also need to protect our soldiers, sailors and airmen and invest in the services and support that they need. We are failing to do that, and the consequence is the overstretch and effect on morale in our armed forces. In Iraq, that attitude of going it alone was one of the reasons for the loss of faith among many of our friends in Europe. Had we had a decent resolution in the UN, we would have gone into Iraq with more support, and therefore more help would have been available in the peacekeeping operation afterwards.
	On the proposal to change the royal prerogative, there are lessons to be learned from what other countries have been doing. Canada has a very similar system to ours, but the Government have promised to offer a vote whenever troops are committed. In Holland, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter), there is a new requirement to keep Parliament informed, but that has caused huge delays in the commitment of troops to Afghanistan.
	There is a debate in the United States arising from the War Powers Act, which followed the engagements in Vietnam and Korea and which has created friction between Congress and the President, who is commander-in-chief, over who has the ultimate power to wage war and who holds the purse strings governing the length of time the country can be committed to a particular war. It is not doing the morale of the forces in Iraq any good to see that tension in the Capitol.
	France, under its constitution of 1958, can declare war only if authorised by Parliament, but circumnavigates that by getting involved in international operations that have a different label. Germany is a great example that we must consider because there the authority is very much bestowed on the Bundestag—the German Parliament. However, anyone who has visited Afghanistan will realise that the caveats that are imposed on German troops hinder them to the point that we question the reason for their presence from a military perspective. They do some work in provincial reconstruction teams, but they refuse to go out at night because their Parliament has told them that they cannot. How can troops who are part of an international security assistance force have such limitations, which do not apply to the rest of the force, imposed on them? It means that they guard the various bases but never wander out and get involved in operations. On paper, it appears as though there are 36,000 troops in Afghanistan, but only 15,000 are actually committed, with another 20,000 or so bound by so many caveats that their value is questionable.
	Parliament must consider the sort of peacekeeping roles on which we would want to vote. Do we want to vote on peace enforcement, conflict resolution or multinational humanitarian relief? Bearing mission creep in mind, we need to be aware of how often we must recall the issues to Parliament to measure our success or ascertain whether things are getting out of control.
	Let us consider the example of Afghanistan. In October 2001, the US and Britain began their air strikes. By 7 December, the last Taliban stronghold in Kandahar fell. On 5 December, the Afghan groups agreed a deal in Bonn on an interim Government and all seemed well. By January 2002, the first contingent of foreign peacekeepers—not war-fighters—were in place. At what stage might Parliament vote? Should there be two votes—one on the initial onslaught and another on the peacekeeping? Of course, the story was incomplete because four years later, in 2005, we moved into Helmand province. Should that have required a vote? The Defence Secretary at the time said—words he probably now regrets—that we would probably not fire a shot. Subsequent deployments on the scale of a division have gone to Afghanistan. I fully support that, but the question for Parliament is the stage at which we vote. The mission has expanded comprehensively from the peacekeeping operation that began in January 2002. The same question that we ask about Iraq applies to Afghanistan: have we got it right? Is the blueprint for success in Afghanistan working? There are some serious questions that are beyond the scope of the debate. Parliament should be able to debate such matters. Currently, we do not have the ability to scrutinise what happens.
	What parameters might Parliament set? Should we be able to vote yes or no on whether to deploy? Should we vote on the size of the force, budget constraints, length of stay or time frame? Indeed, should we vote on the rules of engagement? I was astonished to learn from Defence questions yesterday that the British have different rules of engagement from the US in the Shatt al-Arab waterway. That needs to be rectified. There are legal questions, which could result in soldiers being unsure of where they stand in international law.
	We need proper information. There is a concern that we could end up being armchair generals. We like discussing such issues but we rely heavily on the information that the Government provide, what we find out for ourselves or what the media tell us. That is all very well if we are considering hospitals or schools because I can visit my local school or hospital and glean the information for myself. However, it is difficult for Back Benchers to visit the sort of places that we are discussing and fully comprehend what is happening. The information from the Government, especially the intelligence and security services, must be correct, accurate, up to date and unspun. Should the Defence Committee and the Intelligence and Security Committee be allowed to read more detailed reports? A key issue is sharing information so that Parliament can make informed decisions.
	I am worried about retrospective decision making. In the case of escalation of conflict and mission creep, how far back do we go to confirm what has happened? Should there be UN approval? There can also be ambiguities about the type of conflict being entered into. How prisoners should be dealt with is another issue. The question can also be put the other way round: if Governments can come to Parliament to confirm that they can go to war, can Parliament go to the Government to request war? If I tabled an early-day motion that called for Mugabe to be taken out with a single bullet, I would doubtless get quite a few signatures. Would the Government then be expected to react to that or would such powers not exist? I think I know the answer to that one, but it is an issue that we need to raise.
	In conclusion, life has moved on from the days when wars were reported in  The Times or  The Daily Telegraph two months after they actually happened. Conflicts are now very much under the microscope and are followed in minute detail. We have 24-hour coverage and the country's citizens are far more informed and opinionated than ever before. It is important that Governments are held to account. I very much support the motion and I look forward to seeing the detailed proposals that will now follow—whether they be in the form of a convention or a statute. British involvement in international conflicts will, of course, continue—but, I hope, only after better scrutiny by this House.

Des Browne: I agree with the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) that this has been an exceptionally good debate. I welcome all the contributions made by right hon. and hon. Members to this important debate. I apply the same caveat to my remarks as the hon. Gentleman did. My only concern is that in the time available I will not be able to do justice to all the speeches that have been made, but I shall do my best. The contributions reflected the fundamental place that Parliament has in the democratic decision-making process of this country and the priority we all on both sides of the House attach to the men and women of our armed forces, particularly when we ask them to act on our behalf and put their lives at risk, often in harsh and dangerous environments thousands of miles away from their families and their loved ones.
	I am grateful to all those who have contributed to the House's understanding of the issues involved. That includes the work of the Public Administration Committee, under the leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright). When I was first elected to this House, I served for some time under his leadership on that Committee and I am grateful for the learning process. It also includes the House of Lords Constitution Committee's report and, indeed, the learned debate in the other place on 1 May. All those were of considerable value and drawn on liberally as we debated the issue today.
	At the heart of this debate is the relationship between Parliament and Government. The decision to go to war must always rest with the Prime Minister and his or her Cabinet. But the Government should be accountable to Parliament for their decisions. One of the striking things about this debate, which began with nothing in principle between the Govt and the Opposition, is that it has revealed the complexity of the challenge we have set ourselves in determining a mechanism that gives practical effect to that principle. That mechanism must give a clear mandate for our armed forces that allows them to go into conflict and take on its risks confident that they have the durable support of the country as expressed through its Parliament.
	In summing up this debate, I intend to identify some of the complications involved and to explore the nature of the challenge that we have set ourselves. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) opened the debate and suggested that there was no difference between his motion and the Government's amendment. He suggested that we sought a distinction without a difference—or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) put it, that we were dancing on the head of a pin. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House pointed out a difference that he said was crucial—the imperative to take full account of the paramount need not to compromise the security of UK forces or the operational discretion of those in command.
	The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks sought to dismiss that, asserting that no party in the House would seek to undermine our troops in that way and that it was an unnecessary qualification. I do not want to contradict his assertion that no party in the House would wish to undermine our troops in that way, but I just want to say to him and his colleagues that the terms of the motion that this House passes tonight will be pored over by the military—and quite rightly so.
	For many reasons, some of which I shall come to later in my speech, we must act in a way that gives the troops whom we deploy into conflicts confidence in our decision making. As we are expressing the nature of the principle that we all now espouse, it is important that the House sends the right message of confidence to our troops.
	Those who contributed to this debate included the shadow Foreign Secretary—the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks—the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher), to name but a few. They all welcomed what they described as the Government's damascene conversion—or volte-face—on this issue. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Mr. Moore) for reminding the House that the evolutionary process that has brought the Government to this point has had the same effect on Her Majesty's loyal Opposition. No doubt the Opposition can explain why their Leader, who opposed the principle in 2005, now supports it. In contrast, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House reminded the House that the Government undertook to keep our position under review, and that we have been doing so.
	For my part, as Secretary of State for Defence, it was the apparently insurmountable challenge of working through the complexities that hon. Members today have identified—in spades, I think—that caused me to maintain and support the position adopted by the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords on 1 May. That position was entirely consistent with the position that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister held and which he explained to the Liaison Committee. It was contained in both the reports that we have been considering, and has been quoted liberally in the House today.
	The position adopted by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was reinforced by this House's history of scrutiny, retrospective review and debate of deployments over the past 10 years. I now accept, however, that the weight of the obvious all-party support for the argument had to be recognised. Government and Parliament must now get down to the difficult task of working through the challenges, which should not be underestimated. The record of today's debate will be a significant quarry of the extent of those challenges.
	At the heart of this complexity is a debate about the appropriate mechanism to adopt. With the honourable and consistent exception of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe—and perhaps of the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk—almost all the contributors to the debate favoured the approach of developing a convention that requires resolutions of both Houses prior to the deployment of forces, or to homologate that deployment. Such a convention, however, must preserve the supremacy of the House of Commons.
	Quite rightly, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House did not express a preference at this stage, as the consultation that we have announced has yet to take place. However, the short debate between the right hon. and learned Members for Rushcliffe and for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) highlighted some of the very obvious disadvantages inherent in a statutory framework, particularly the risk of a later legal challenge and all the detrimental effect that that would have on the morale of deployed troops. However, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe countered that point with an impressive argument about the need for a degree of certainty and clarity, based on the fact that he has no confidence in the power of convention. I suspect that that debate will continue, and perhaps over time the right hon. and learned Gentleman will attract a few more supporters to his position than he was able to do today.
	Several contributions drew on the words of Lord Bramall, Lord Garden and others who contributed to the Lords debate, pointing out that in exploring the options to formalise Parliament's involvement, we need to be conscious of the need not to undermine the effectiveness or security of our military personnel. It would be remiss of me not to highlight some of the issues we need to bear in mind in trying to achieve that objective; they include not only operational effectiveness but the wider diplomatic and development activity that often accompanies the deployment of our forces.
	The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow devoted a considerable amount of time to timing. I am grateful, too, for the contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) and of the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), who set out the comparative advantages of earlier and later decision making. The hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) raised an aspect of that issue in an early intervention when he explored the characteristics of major or substantial deployment.
	I agree that, as has been said, although the major deployments in respect of the Falklands, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan clearly lent themselves to a process of parliamentary decision making, we have to recognise the nature of modern warfare. There are practical considerations such as the long lead times needed for military advantage, not to mention military engagements such as aerial bombing and the use of missiles, which in the words of the military are designed to shape the battle space. If we get the timing wrong, there is a danger, in the words of the report of the Lords Constitution Committee, of
	"removing the ability of United Kingdom forces to have 'strategic poise' by giving the opponent early notice of intent".
	The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) brought to the attention of the House the fact that modern military operations are very different from those we engaged in only 20 years ago. In that respect, we try to adopt what has become known as the "comprehensive approach", integrating all the levers of Government to maximise the effect on the ground—a point to which I shall return later if I have time.
	I know that I speak for the House when I say that my first priority is the effectiveness and safety of our armed forces. It is crucial that they remain capable of performing the tasks we ask of them, agile enough to respond quickly to an ever more dynamic operational environment and robust in the face of real threats to our, and their, security. Their morale and safety must remain paramount.
	If Parliament is to take an informed view of military deployments, it is only natural that Members should want to satisfy themselves about the nature of the operation and the threat our forces will face and that they will have the equipment, tactics and procedures they need to help them to succeed. Indeed, Members set out a list of the requirements for any such debate, drawing on the report of the Lords Committee. I know of the necessity to satisfy oneself about all those things; as Defence Secretary I ask myself such questions every day in relation to the deployment of our troops in theatre.
	The Lords Committee considered those points in its report, which noted the need to restrict some information but acknowledged that it could compromise the ability of Parliament to make informed decisions about a given situation. That is why in that decision-making process I shall resist the sharing of any information that compromises the priority of operational security. This is not a hypothetical debate, or one in which the Government hide behind the smokescreen of security concerns; it is not even about what information the Government proactively put before Parliament. In today's globalised world, where our potential adversaries watch the same television programmes and read the same newspapers and internet sites as we do, operational security can easily be undermined not just by the Government's answers but even by the questions posed; managing that in a way that allows Parliament to take an informed view will be a significant challenge.
	We would certainly not release any information that could compromise sensitive intelligence or reveal elements of our operational planning. Indeed, I can conceive of some military operations that the House would not want to debate in public, either because it would risk escalating the conflict or because the mission itself is so sensitive that even acknowledging its existence would risk undermining the effectiveness of deployed forces and the UK's wider interests.

Edward Miliband: I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention and I do indeed pay tribute to the Brownies and Guides for the extraordinary work that they do.
	In 1907, Robert Baden-Powell went to Brownsea island with the first 20 scouts. Ten were from the east end of London and had already left school and were at work, and ten were from private schools. Today, there are 28 million scouts across the world. Few movements can boast a roll-call of alumni that includes not just current Members of this House but 26 of the first 29 astronauts, Sir John Major, the current Prime Minister and President of the United States, and a number of other extraordinary people.
	I am proud to be the Minister responding to the debate and I salute everyone in the scouting movement for their work. I am inspired by what they do and I wish them a happy centenary.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at nine minutes to Eleven o'clock.